Fashion, Future, & Faith
This Great Idea is based on a few recent books, articles, and posts about fashion and Creation Care, along with a solid way to move from discussion to action. Read on!
How much did Jesus want us to worry about what we wear?
Read:
If we’re able to set aside judgment and preconceived ideas about what others should wear – from all ages – fashion can be a wonderful topic to inspire conversation about communal ethics and values, social interests and mores, marginalization and othering, gender identity and body image, wealth and consumerism, and – creation care.
Earth Day 2025 focuses on Fashion for the Earth. In their post, WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE FASHION?, Earth Day planners offer videos and other resources for:
- A ‘What is Sustainable Fashion?’ discussion
- Sign the Petition: The Fashion Industry Must Change
- Get the Facts
- What You Can Do
- Test Your Knowledge/Take a Quiz
- And Toolkits for:
- How to Swap for the Earth
- How to Sustainably Shop for Your Clothes
- How to Care for Your Clothes
- How to Create a Capsule Collection
- Join EarthDay.Org’s Campaign: My Planet My Closet – submit your own video
- AND MORE!!
For a deeper dive, read together:
- What to Wear and Why: Your Guilt-Free Guide to Sustainable Fashion (Broadleaf)
- Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion (Portfolio)
- and its follow-up: The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good while Doing Good (Plume)
- or invite adults to read, Fashionopolis: Why What We Wear Matters while youth read, Fashionopolis: The Secrets behind the Clothes We Wear – Young Readers Edition (both Penguin) – then compare notes.
Kids books on fashion and sustainability include:
- Flip-Flopi
- Harriet’s Ruffled Feathers
- One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and The Recycling Women of the Gambia (Lerner)
- Eco Fashion Dolls: A Beginner’s Guide to Sustainable Fashion
Easy guiding questions can be shared to broaden conversation from any of these books – or start fresh:
- How do you decide what to wear each day?
- What kinds of clothes make you feel the most like you?
- Who or what influences your decisions about clothes?
- How much space do you need to store your clothes?
- What values do you look for when considering what clothes to buy and wear?
- Where do your clothes come from?
- What are your clothes made from?
- Who made your clothes?
- Consider the word, ‘covet’ (from The Ten Commandments – 9 & 10): how does coveting play into our sense of fashion and/or our clothes sourcing and/or our commitment to justice and equity for all God’s beloved creation?
That last one can be tricky – but wonder together about who benefits from our clothes purchases – and who loses? Do we ‘deserve’ the clothes we want, simply because we want them? And how does our wanting – of fast fashion, or clothes shipped multiple times around the world, or clothes built by child labor or under-paid workers – how does our wanting cheap clothing mean others go without? That’s the essence of ‘covetousness’: that ‘I’ deserve the thing more than anyone else.
One St Paul congregation moved from discussion to action by developing a Sweater Swap – and it turned out so well, they’re planning another one for this year. Here’s what one leader wrote:
‘We got such good feedback from our Sweater Swap a few years ago! We did it in conjunction with lowering the thermostat a couple of degrees that morning, and asking people to wear sweaters.
Dr. Kathy Reiley provided us with great resources for second-hand shopping and donating.
There’s even a “How-To” Guide from the organization, Shareable: https://www.shareable.net/how-
Congregations interested in collaborating on a multi-congregational clothes swap this February – I’m happy to make connections!
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This could be the making of a whole toolkit someday!
